During this year’s Student Government Association Presidential race, allegations of bribery were made against the Nick Larkins and Cristina Barreto Ticket.
Knight News requested documents relating to the allegations made against the Nick and Christina Ticket.
Larkins’ accuser (who’s identity has been redacted by UCF) cites in his “Election Violation Report,” Title 6, Chapter 600.D, of the SGA Statutes. It states bribery is constituted by: “A prize, reward, gift or favor bestowed or promised with a with to influence the action of another to vote, not vote, or vote for or against a particular candidate/ticket and/or any other item on the ballot, in any way. Any item distributed by the Election Commission shall not constitute bribery.”
In the accuser’s report, the accuser describes how Larkins not only allegedly promised positions to the accuser but also to other individuals:
“Nicholas Larkins has offered many different Executive cabinet positions to different students in order to influence their vote. This is backed up by Larkins saying during the debate that he offered another candidate the position of Attorney General (at approximately 24 minutes in the official debate video by the Nicholson School of Communication). Larkins believed that I was going to attempt a run for SGA President. To stop this, he threatened to ‘destroy’ me and said he would make sure I would never have a future in SGA again. Directly after this the candidate said that if I were to support him and vote for him I could have any position I wanted on his cabinet-while explicitly naming the Director of Campus Life position. These positions are sought after by a large number of students and to offer one directly to students is certainly a ‘favor bestowed or promised with a view to influence the action of another to vote, not vote, or vote for or against a particular candidate/ ticket.’”
The accuser closed by adding a text message conversation that appears to be from Larkins to the accuser dated 11/10/16. In the text, it appears as though Larkins requested a walk with the accuser later that day.
The accuser writes in his report, “This is the text message that the candidate sent me before we went on ‘a walk.’ It was during this time that the bribery happened.”
Along with the accusers’ story of alleged bribery, the accuser also submitted a list of five students who have also been promised positions by Larkins. Unfortunately UCF has redacted these names from the report.
Knight News emailed UCF asking for a non-redacted copy of this report, but so far has only received an email from SGA President Christopher Clemente where he said, “TLDR.”
TLDR appears to mean: Too Long, Didn’t Read.
Larkins did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
